Pasta with Chanterelle cream sauce

When I was a little girl in Sweden, we went out in the woods to pick Kantareller (or Chanterelles).  They peeked out of the moss and pine needles, like little golden trumpets in the woods.  They were so delicate and buttery in flavor, especially when sautéed in butter!  Fresh chanterelles are hard to find, as they are seasonal, and cannot be cultivated.  They seem to only grow in the wild, and only where they choose, but they seem to prefer evergreen forest conditions.  About once a year, there is a 4-5 week time frame when I can find these golden fungi at the grocery store or farmer’s market, but usually at a cost of $28-30 a pound.  CostCo sometimes has them, and then it’s more like $10-12 a lb, which is much better than $28 a pound. But still, pricey.

So imagine my delight when I heard through the grapevine that a girl from our church lived near a wooded area that seems to have prolific Chanterelle growth every fall.  Sure enough, I went out there this morning for about an hour or so, in my rubber boots, and carefully meandered around the woods behind her yard.  Carefully, since the mushrooms often were tucked underneath the moss & leaves, and even though brightly colored, they often just blend in with the autumn foliage on the ground. As soon as my ‘chanterelle eyes’ became accustomed to looking beyond and underneath the camouflage hiding these little gems, I started finding dozens and dozens of them, ranging in size from 1/2” in diameter to several inches wide.

I picked almost a whole grocery bag worth. And now that I have had my dinner, I thought I’d tell you what one of my favorite chanterelle-based meals is.

INGREDIENTS:

1-2 cups worth of chopped chanterelles – brush off dirt and debris with a pastry brush
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 sprig fresh rosemary, de-stemmed, and finely chopped up (probably about 1 tsp of dried rosemary)
3-5 large sage leaves, finely chopped up (I suspect it would be about 2 tsp worth of dried sage)
1-2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup- 3/4 cup heavy cream

Sauté the mushrooms in the butter, until soft, and then sprinkle flour over them, and stir it in until absorbed.  Pour cream, and herbs and seasonings in, and allow to simmer over low heat until the cream thickens a bit from the flour.

Meanwhile, prepare your favorite type of pasta according to directions, and drain it.  Stir in the cream sauce over the pasta.

This pasta is particularly delicious when served with grilled poultry, such as turkey breasts or chicken.  I had chicken tenderloins (because I always have them in my freezer) so I defrosted them, marinated them with olive oil, sage, rosemary, salt & pepper (probably about 3 or 4 sage leaves, minced, 2 sprigs of rosemary, chopped up, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp ground pepper) and grilled them on a very hot grill for about 2 minutes on each side.  Then I cut the chicken tenders into bite-size pieces and stirred them in with the pasta.   I have also served this with chicken breasts stuffed with brie, and made a similar sauce to drizzle over grilled turkey breast.  Roasted rock hens are also excellent with chanterelles. 

The chanterelles are so delicate in flavor that you really don’t want to overpower them with a lot of other flavors or heavy meats.  I stick with sage, and rosemary as the only real seasonings. I don’t use onions or garlic with chanterelles, because just a couple of woodsy herbs are enough of a good complements, and the cream sauce just enhances it all.

 

Technorati Tags: chicken,pasta,mushrooms,chanterelles,cream,herbs,main dishes,side dishes

Cedar-planked salmon

Our friend caught fresh King Salmon in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday and brought us one.  So on Monday  I filleted it, (not very well, lacking the proper type of knife) and seasoned it with sea salt, fresh ground pepper, ground coriander and grilled it on a soaked cedar plank.  That’s pretty much the entirety of the recipe, and the directions… And it was so simple, and so delicious. I served it up with some brown rice, and  sautéed spinach, onions and bell peppers (I told you I have bell peppers with almost every meal, didn’t I?) which I grated fresh Peccorino cheese on top of.  Oh, and squirt some fresh lime or lemon juice on the fish, once it's off the grill.  Be careful about pre-seasoning with acidic things on fish, because the acid will start to 'cook' the fish prematurely.

The only tips I have for you, especially if you're a grilling beginner, are as follows: soak the grilling plank about 4 hours before dinner time to make sure it doesn’t fully catch fire on the grill; take your fish out of the fridge a half hour before grilling so that it’s temperature warms up a bit, which allows it to grill faster, and not dry out too much; last, but not least, preheat the grill ten minutes (if your grill has a thermostat on the lid, you’ll want it to be around 400 degrees in there) so the fillet will grill on the plank in about ten minutes.  The internal temp of the fish should hit 145, if you use a meat thermometer.

Technorati Tags: salmon,fish,main dishes,grilled dishes,cedar plank

Grilled Teriyaki Ahi Tuna with Pepper & Kale stir fry

One of the things I’m fairly skilled at is shopping in bulk for a variety of basic ingredients and reusing them in various combinations. So last week, I made a grilled pork tenderloin, with sautéed kale, bell peppers and tomatoes. Tonight I used the remaining kale & peppers, and a few tweaks, plus the Ahi for my protein, and now I suddenly had a delicious, Asian-fusion teriyaki seafood dinner, and it was fast and easy, and entirely cooked outside on the grill.

Ingredients:

2 ahi tuna steaks, (I started with frozen, which I defrosted in their vacuum sealed bags, in a sink full of cold water for about an hour)

Place tuna in a shallow dish with the below marinade, for at least half an hour before grilling. Drizzle plenty of the marinade on top.

Marinade:

2 tbsp Mirin
2 tbsp Sake
1/2 tsp ginger
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

Stir Fry:

4 stalks of kale, washed, stemmed and chopped
1 red or yellow bell pepper, julienned
6-8 stems of green onions, chopped (either length-wise or across)
1 cup of sliced shiitake mushrooms (I used dried mushrooms, which I reconstituted in hot water for ten minutes, before adding to my stir fry)
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp crushed red peppers

Directions:
Start the side burner on your grill (if you have one) and continuously stir fry the veggies, until the peppers are tender, & kale is wilted. Simultaneously, pre-heat the grill, and when it’s hot, grill the tuna on each side for 2 minutes for rare, or 3-4 minutes for well done, spooning the left-over marinade continously over the top side while it’s grilling. I say this with a chuckle, because I never quite manage to keep the middle “raw” even though I would love to eat it that way. So alas, it was fully grilled, but still very good. Serve the tuna on top of the stir-fry veggies. Delish.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Kale Sauté

So tonight’s dinner is so absurdly simple that I hesitate to even blog about it. I mean, there was very little prep of any kind. Just some chopping, some seasoning and that’s it. But it was delicious. So for those of you who think putting a few raw ingredients together constitutes “cooking” I share with you my excessive wisdom. Ha ha ha.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pork tenderloin (I happened to have bought an organic, farm fresh pork tenderloin from a co-op-type place.)

5-6 stems of kale, de-stemmed, and roughly chopped

1 bell pepper, preferably red or yellow (and you will find that bell peppers are in most of my foods), julienned

2 Roma tomatoes, cut into small wedges

Olive oil, fennel seed, salt & pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Sprinkle liberal amounts of fennel seed, salt & fresh ground pepper all over the pork. Grill it on high the first 3 or 4 minutes, turning it once to the other side.

Turn down heat to medium, and keep grilling until internal temp is about 155-160 F. Slice into medallions.

A few minutes before the pork is done, sauté the veggies in a skillet with olive oil, and some salt & pepper sprinkled on. Serve like a “hot salad.”